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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Chap. Copyright No. 

Shelf. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



YOUTH AND AGE 



The Temple Series, 

Dainty cloth bindings. Illustrated. 

Price, 35 cents each, postpaid. 

GOLDEN COUNSELS. 

Dwight L. Moody. 

WELL-BUILT. 

Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D. 

HELPS UPWARD. 

Rev. Wayland Hoyt, D. D. 

A FENCE OF TRUST. {Poems.) 
Mary F. Butts. 

PLUCK AND PURPOSE. 

William M. Thayer. 

LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 
Amos R. Wells. 

WISE LIVING. 

Rev. George C. Lorimer, D. D. 

THE INDWELLING GOD. 

Rev. Charles A. Dickinson, D. D. 

TACT. 

Kate Sanborn. 

YOUTH AND AGE. 

Rev. James Stalker, D. D. 

SUNSHINE. (POEMS.) 

Mary D. Brine. 

MAKING THE MOST OF ONESELF. 
Rev. A. S. Gumbart, D. D. 

ANSWERED ! 

Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D. D., 
Rev. R. A. Torrey, D. D., Rev. 
C. H. Yatman, Rev. Edgar E. 
Davidson, Thomas E. Murphy, 
and Rev. A. C. Dixon, D. D. 



United Society of Cnristian Endeavor* 

Boston and Chicago. 




REV. JAMES STALKER, D. D. 



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Youth and Age 



By 

Rev. James Stalker, D. D, 



Author of " The Life of Jesus Christ," 
Imago Christi," etc. 



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United Society of Christian Endeavor 
Boston and Chicago 



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Copyright, i8qq, 

BY THE 

United Society of Christian Endeavor 
TWOCOI-lfea KtiCEIV&D. 



JUL 1 7 1899 



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Electrotyped and Printed by 
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Kemember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, 
while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, 
when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them ; 
while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be 
not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: in 
the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, 
and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the 
grinders cease because they are few, and those that look 
out of the windows be darkened, and the doors shall be 
shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is 
low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and 
all the daughters of music shall be brought low ; also 
when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and 
fears shall be in the way, and the almond-tree shall 
flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and 
desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, 
and the mourners go about the streets : or ever the sil- 
ver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the 
pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken 
at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth 
as it was : and the spirit shall return unto God who 
4 gave it.— Eccl. 12 : 1-7. 



YOUTH AND AGE. 




'N most of the books of the Bible 
there occur lyrics which might be 
lifted out of the contest and enjoyed 
by themselves; and one of the 
choicest of these is the description 
of Old Age in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, 
which is printed on the opposite page. 

The key-note of the poem is struck in the 
opening words, " Remember now thy Creator in 
the days of thy youth, while the evil days come 
not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt 
say, I have no pleasure in them." Old age is 
described by the term " the evil days," " the 
years of which thou shalt say, I have no pleasure 
in them." This is the natural view of old age. 
Perhaps one might call it the pagan view. It is 
the view which has sometimes led the heathen to 



8 YOUTH AND AGE. 

expose their own parents to the elements, because 
these had reached the stage at which they were 
useless and life was supposed to be no longer 
desirable even to themselves. It is the view ex- 
pressed by a famous English poet, who was a 
clergyman by profession, but a pagan at heart, 
when he sings : — 

" That time is best which is the first, 
When youth and blood are warmer, 
But, being past, the worse and worst 
Times still succeed the former." 

In the verses which follow in the last chapter 
of Bcclesiastes this view is carried out in detail ; 
and the effects of old age are described, first on 
the mind, secondly on the body, thirdly on the 
functions of the body, and fourthly on the 
temper of the mind. 

First are mentioned the effects of old age on 
the mental powers — " While the sun, or the 
light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, 
nor the clouds return after the rain." 

By " the sun " appears to be meant here the 
intellect or reason — what the Bible calls 
" the spirit " — which is, indeed, the luminary 
of the microcosm of human nature ; and " the 
light " is the illumination of knowledge or prin- 



YOUTH AND AGE. 9 

ciple which it sheds on the path. " The moon " 
denotes the inferior powers of the mind — what 
the Bible calls " the soul," as distinguished from 
the spirit — while "the stars" may be the five 
senses, which stand half-way between mind and 
body. 

All these — sun and light, moon and stars — 
are " darkened " : that is, the mental powers are 
enfeebled in old age : the senses no longer re- 
spond quickly to stimulus from without; the 
memory loses its hold ; the intellect soon grows 
weary with exertion. And, it is added, "the 
clouds return after the rain." In childhood and 
youth, after a rain of tears, sunshine soon re- 
turns: sorrow is forgotten, and happiness and 
hope regain the mastery. But it is not so in old 
age : at this period of life losses and disappoint- 
ments are so much the order of the day that no 
sooner, after rain, has the sky cleared up than 
the clouds return again, foreboding another 
storm. 

In the next verse we have the effects of old 
age on the body — "In the day when the keepers 
of the house shall tremble, and the strong men 
shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease 
because they are few, and those that look out of 
the windows be darkened." 

In all languages the body has been compared 



10 YOUTH AND AGE, 

to a "house" — the house in which the soul 
lives. But here the different members of the 
body are compared not to the different parts 
of a house, as might have been expected, but to 
its different occupants — first the men, then the 
women. The place of the men is to keep watch 
and ward and to perform the tasks requiring 
strength ; and the members employed for these 
purposes are the legs and arms. These are " the 
keepers " that tremble and " the strong men " 
that bow themselves. In old age the limbs shake 
and shuffle, and the arms grow shrunken and 
palsied. Then the women of the house are 
mentioned. They are called " the grinders." 
And the reason is well known to any one ac- 
quainted with Eastern manners ; for no com- 
moner sight meets the observer in any Oriental 
interior than the women grinding the corn be- 
tween the upper and the nether millstones. 
Another characteristic feature of Oriental life 
is that the women " look out of the windows." 
They are immured in the women's quarters ; but 
their natural curiosity impels them to take every 
opportunity of peering from behind the jalousies 
and through the lattices. There can be little 
doubt to which parts of the body reference is 
made in these images. In our own languages 
we call certain teeth " molars," from the Latin 



YOUTH AND AGE. 11 

word signifying a mill, and the action of the 
upper and nether jaws in eating has an unmis- 
takable resemblance to that of the stones in 
grinding. " The grinders," then, are the teeth ; 
and just as obviously " they that look out at the 
windows" are the eyes. But in old age "the 
grinders cease because they are few, and those 
that look out of the windows are darkened." 
Feebleness of vision is a common feature of old 
age, and not infrequently in the East, where 
ophthalmia is exceedingly prevalent, it issues in 
total blindness. 

Thirdly, the effects of old age on the functions 
of the body are described — " And the doors 
shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of 
the grinding is low ; and he shall rise up at the 
voice of the bird ; and all the daughters of music 
shall be brought low." 

The door open to the street is the symbol of 
social intercourse and of traffic with the world ; 
but old age, unfit for the battle and the bustle, 
retires within, to the chimney-corner ; and the 
door need not be open, for there is no longer the 
ceaseless coming and going. The same cessation 
of the activity of life — but with reference rather 
to the inner than the outer — is beautifully ex- 
pressed by saying, " The sound of the grinding 
is low," or better, " the sound of the mill is low." 



12 YOUTH AND AGE. 

This should not be thought of as having any 
reference to eating, to which grinding in the 
previous verse is compared. The idea is, that 
the whole tone of life is lowered — the passion 
and the pace, the glow of ambition and the 
noise of exertion pass away ; and everything is 
on a lower key. 

Even the function of sleep is no longer what 
it was ; and so the old man " rises up at the 
voice of the bird." As the bodily powers grow 
feeble, it might be expected that sleep would be 
longer and deeper; but the reverse is a well- 
known feature of old age: it awakes at the 
slightest noise — even the voice of a bird — and 
it rises out of bed at the crowing of the cock in 
the morning. 

The last feature here is — " all the daughters 
of music shall be brought low." Old age is 
neither able, with its " childish treble," to con- 
tribute to song nor, with its impaired hearing, to 
derive pleasure from it; and this is a general 
sign for the decay of the powers by which art 
is cultivated and the sounds and colors of the 
world are enjoyed. 

Fourthly, the effects of old age on the temper 
of the mind — " Also when they shall be afraid 
of that which is high, and fears shall be in the 
way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and 



YOUTH AND AGE. 13 

the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire 
shall fail." 

Old age is " afraid of that which is high." 
Physically this is true ; for one of the first signs 
of the oncoming of age is that people feel a hill. 
Where youth is not even aware that an ascent 
exists, old age is out of breath. But there is 
also in the words a deeper meaning : old age is 
" afraid of that which is high " in this sense — 
that to it novel and arduous schemes are for- 
midable ; " and fears are in the way " — it sees 
all the lions in the path. Youth sees not these ; 
it sees only the ideal, not the practical obstacles 
to its attainment. Youth casts itself without 
hesitation into enterprises far beyond its powers ; 
but old age is so conscious of its own limitations 
that it shrinks from undertakings which it could 
easily accomplish. 

"The almond-tree shall flourish" is generally 
supposed to describe gray hairs ; for the almond- 
tree, before its blossoms fall, is one mass of pure 
white from top to bottom. But this trait does 
not come in so well here as the one expressed in 
the next clause — " the grasshopper shall be a 
burden." The grasshopper is a proverbial image 
of what is light and trifling ; so, a mere trifle — 
the least exertion, the most trivial task — is a 
burden to old age. "And desire shall fail." 



14 YOUTH AND AGE. 

Literally it is, " the caper shall fail " : the 
caper-berry was used by the ancients, as it is 
by ourselves, to give relish to food ; but it no 
longer excites the appetite of old age. And, 
when thus the desire even for food fails, the 
end cannot be far off, when " man goeth to his 
long home, and the mourners go about the 
streets." In Eastern countries funerals take 
place outside the city-walls ; and, as the pro- 
cession wends its way to the cemetery through 
the streets, hired mourners follow the bier, mak- 
ing doleful sounds, or celebrating the virtues of 
the deceased in brief snatches of elegy. 

At this point our poem takes a new start, in 
order that, after having expatiated on the 
frailties of old age, which precede death, it 
may characterize death itself. And the phrases 
in which it does so are incomparable in their 
beauty — " Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or 
the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be 
broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at 
the cistern." 

There are two images. The one is that of a 
lamp in a palace or temple, suspended from the 
ceiling by a silver chain, while the oil by which 
the light is kept burning is contained in a golden 
bowl. Night and day the lamp burns steadily on, 



YOUTH AND AGE. 15 

and to this is compared the flame of vital force 
continuing to burn in the human organism. 
But, either through the corrosion of time or 
some accident, the silver chain snaps, the bowl 
is dashed on the marble pavement, and the light 
is extinguished. And so, in death, is the light 
of life put out. The other image is equally fine. 
It is that of an Eastern well, where the water is 
fetched up from below in a bucket or pitcher, at 
the end of a rope, which is wound on a wheel or 
windlass. Thousands of times has the pitcher 
descended, thousands of times has the wheel 
revolved ; but some day the pitcher will descend 
for the last time, some day will the wheel re- 
volve no more ; for it is broken. And how like 
is this to the action of the lungs or the heart, 
going on for a lifetime with unfailing regularity ; 
but at last the heart gives its last beat, the lungs 
expand for the last time, and all is over. 

" Then shall the dust return to the earth as it 
was, and the spirit shall return unto God who 
gave it." The body of man, fair as it is and 
noble as are its functions, is after all but part 
of the clay of the world ; and its destiny is to 
return, after its work is done, to the place whence 
it came — earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to 
dust. But the spirit of man is of loftier deriva- 
tion : it is a particle of divine air, a spark of 



16 YOUTH AND AGE. 

divine fire : and, when released from its work in 
the service of the holy, it returns to the place of 
its origin. 

Such is the picture painted by the poet of 
Ecclesiastes of man's mutability and mortality. 
But for what purpose was it painted ? This is 
made unmistakably clear in the opening words 
of the poem, " Remember now thy Creator in the 
days of thy youth." It is a description of old 
age intended not for the aged but for the 
young. Why, however, address them on this 
subject ? 

Is the idea simply to warn the young that 
they must die, and, therefore, ought to be pre- 
pared ? This is a strong motive in religion. 
Death, judgment, and eternity are words which 
smite the hearts of mortals with awful solemnity ; 
and especially when the strokes of death happen 
to be falling near ourselves, or the revolving 
seasons remind us that our time is short, the 
thought will flash sometimes across the most 
careless, " Prepare to meet thy God." But, if 
this had been the idea of the Bcclesiast, he would 
not have placed death at the end of old age, 
but would have shown, in a series of striking 
examples, which it would have been easy to 
accumulate, how uncertain is the tenure of 
human life, and how at any moment death, 



YOUTH AND AGE. 17 

coming from an unexpected quarter, may hurry 
man to his account ; for it is this uncertainty 
that points the folly of trifling with religion and 
postponing to some future date the business of 
eternity. 

Although, therefore, this is a true thought, it 
is not the thought of the Ecclesiast. His is 
infinitely more original and more noble. What 
is it ? Why should the failure of the powers of 
mind and body in old age be a reason for re- 
membering the Creator in youth ? It is because 
religion is one of the pleasures of life — in fact, 
its purest and intensest pleasure — and, there- 
fore, if you wish to taste it at its best, you 
should do so whilst the powers of enjoyment 
are still keen, and before they have been blunted 
by inferior gratifications. 

This thought is in accord with the message of 
the entire book of Ecclesiastes, which is not, as it 
is often called, a pessimistic book, but optimistic 
in the highest degree. It is true it denounces 
sinful pleasures ; but there are other pleasures 
— pure and natural pleasures, such as those 
arising from industry, friendship, and domesti- 
city — which it not only does not denounce, but 
recommends, urging its readers not to miss them, 
but to drink deeply of them, and, above all, not 
to linger, but to seize the cup whilst the power 



18 YOUTH AND AGE. 

of enjoyment is still fresh. The greatest, how- 
ever, of all such pleasures by far is God Him- 
self. Therefore, whatever you miss, do not miss 
this pleasure ; seize it now, as long as you are 
able to enjoy it — " Remember now thy Creator 
in the days of thy youth." 

This is a highly original view of religion, but 
is it not a true one ? If there be a God, must 
He not be man's highest happiness ? Is not 
Jesus Christ the chief among ten thousand and 
the altogether lovely ? Is He not the pearl of 
great price, for which it is worth while to sell 
every other prize ? Away with the old notion, 
that religion is some kind of dose or potion to 
be taken as an insurance against the terrors of 
eternity ! Religion is either nothing or it is the 
pleasure of pleasures. 

The truth of this is especially manifest when 
we look on the active side of religion. What is 
religion on its active or positive side ? It is the 
sharing of Christ's enthusiasm, the doing of God's 
work, the championing of the cause of progress 
in the world. How can dying men do this ? 
They have no time, they have no strength. 
Christ needs hearts young enough to feel the 
woe of the world, minds fresh enough to devise 
the best means for making the world better, and 
hands vigorous enough to carry such plans into 



YOUTH AND AGE. 19 

execution. And none will ever know the full 
joy and glory of such a religion but those who 
remember their Creator in the days of their 
youth. 

There may be still another thought in the 
text. I said, at the outset, that old age is here 
described from the natural point of view, — as a 
pagan or a man of the world might describe it. 
If it is not exactly the old age of a sensualist 
that is in view, who has worn himself out with 
excesses and has now to pay the penalty in the 
decay and ruin of his powers, still less is it a 
religious old age. A religious old age is a very 
different thing. Often is it described in the 
Bible in very different terms, as in the well- 
known psalm : — 

" Those that within the house of God 

Are planted by His grace, 
They shall grow up and flourish all 

In our God's holy place ; 
And in old age, when others fade, 

They fruit still forth shall bring ; 
They shall be fat and full of sap, 

And aye be flourishing." 

This, then, is the argument : old age inevi- 
tably brings its frailties and losses ; but, if you 



20 YOUTH AND AGE. 

would be able to cope with these, then remember 
your Creator in the days of your youth. This 
will ensure a very different old age from that 
here described. A sober, Christian life, as a 
rule, defers the advances of decay, the consti- 
tution remaining sound to the end. Cheerful- 
ness attends a Christian's advancing years ; for 
the best is still in front, and his eyes are turned 
not to the setting but to the rising sun. Aged 
Christians, instead of being afraid of that which 
is high, and throwing cold water on every scheme 
for the advancement of the world, are often more 
enterprising than their younger fellow workers ; 
for they have learned to put their trust in God 
and not in an arm of flesh. What an influence 
accumulates around a saintly old age, when 
behind every act and word there rises the image 
of a well-spent life ! And, even if there be 
infirmity of mind or body, which years have 
brought on, this only adds pathos to the testi- 
mony : the blessing of an old man falls with all 
the more impressiveness when it is given with 
a feeble voice and a trembling hand. 

There are many of the young who have the 
intention of living for the world for a time, and 
then, at the last, turning to God and preparing for 
eternity . They may never, indeed, have avowed 



YOUTH AND AGE. 21 

this intention to themselves in so many words, but 
it is at the back of their minds, and it deter- 
mines their conduct. Now, this ancient poem 
was written to pulverize such an idea and 
scatter it to the winds as utterly unworthy 
and false. I remember an incident, which 
occurred when I was at the university, and 
profoundly affected me at the time, as it did 
many others. There was a student, very well 
known as an athlete, who had a bad accident 
in the football-field. After a day or two the 
rumor circulated among the students that he 
was fatally injured and could not recover ; and 
this proved to be the case. He had not been 
a dissipated man, but he had been a careless 
one. Some of his fellow students who were 
admitted to his room spoke about eternity ; and 
his mind was opened to receive the message of 
the gospel. But, just as he was on the point 
of accepting Christ, he turned around and with 
a strange smile said to the friend who was con- 
versing with him, " Would it not be a mean 
thing, after giving my life to the devil, to take 
all this from Christ at the last ? " I hope this 
did not prevent him from receiving the gift of 
God ; but is there any young and generous mind 
which does not sympathize with his sentiment ? 
It is a mean thing to spend the best of our life 



22 YOUTH AND AGE. 

on ourselves and then come to Christ with the 
dregs. Give him the whole — your life in its 
bloom, your powers in their vigor, the strenuous 
service of a lifetime. Every day spent in sin is 
a day lost; to postpone religion is to put off 
your own true happiness ; religion is not only 
a good thing to die with but a priceless thing to 
live with. Decide to-day, decide this instant, 
and do it with your whole heart. Lord Jesus, 
take me ; I am thine, wholly thine, and thine 
forever. 



JUu W ]m 



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